View Full Version : Will FCP or FCS 2 play nice with Aluminum MacBooks?


Christopher Ruffell
October 14th, 2008, 12:49 PM
A 'cheap' MacBook (not the Pro) would be great for editing OfflineRT sequences from FCP. However, the older plastic MacBooks didn't have the GPU horsepower to support FCP (or so Apple said at least). Now they look like they do.

MacBook tech specs:
http://www.apple.com/macbook/specs.html

I'm not thinking production portable workstation here.. a Mac Pro or MacBook Pro would be the main computer. However, with the new MacBooks, with the GeForce 9400M, is it safe to think that FCP and FCS 2 will run on these inexpensive Apple laptops?

Jason Lowe
October 14th, 2008, 01:04 PM
A 'cheap' MacBook (not the Pro) would be great for editing OfflineRT sequences from FCP. However, the older plastic MacBooks didn't have the GPU horsepower to support FCP (or so Apple said at least). Now they look like they do.

MacBook tech specs:
Apple - MacBook - Technical Specifications (http://www.apple.com/macbook/specs.html)

I'm not thinking production portable workstation here.. a Mac Pro or MacBook Pro would be the main computer. However, with the new MacBooks, with the GeForce 9400M, is it safe to think that FCP and FCS 2 will run on these inexpensive Apple laptops?

How are you planning on getting the video in there without a firewire port?

Christopher Ruffell
October 14th, 2008, 01:10 PM
With the work I've been doing, I won't even be touching FireWire or HDV in the import process.

I shoot uncompressed HD and capture directly from the camera to a RAID workstation (MacPro) with a Decklink HD Extreme card on set via a 150' HD-SDI.

I agree though, I wish they hadn't taken FireWire away in order to force Pros to go the MacBook Pro. Pretty low move, but that's not what I'm debating.

So, what I'll end up editing on the MacBook will be an OfflineRT version of whichever project I'm working on. Can the new MacBooks run FCS2..

Jason Lowe
October 14th, 2008, 01:28 PM
With the work I've been doing, I won't even be touching FireWire or HDV in the import process.

I shoot uncompressed HD and capture directly from the camera to a RAID workstation (MacPro) with a Decklink HD Extreme card on set via a 150' HD-SDI.

I agree though, I wish they hadn't taken FireWire away in order to force Pros to go the MacBook Pro. Pretty low move, but that's not what I'm debating.

So, what I'll end up editing on the MacBook will be an OfflineRT version of whichever project I'm working on. Can the new MacBooks run FCS2..

Nice setup.

I don't see why they wouldn't run FCS2 flawlessly. They're very nice machines overall.

Christopher Ruffell
October 14th, 2008, 01:31 PM
Thanks - yeah, they are nice new machines. However, I wonder.. it's Apple and all.

I can totally see the 'system requirements' for FCS 3 stating that a GeForce 9400M is NOT supported. :( It'd be very Apple of Apple to do that.

Matt Davis
October 14th, 2008, 02:26 PM
they are nice new machines. However, I wonder.. it's Apple and all.

I think it's about ingest.

The older MacBooks could just about do FCP and you could ingest from Z1 to disk by linking them all together. The new ones look tempting and probably will do a lot better with Motion et al, but without the ExpressCard and FireWire slots, Steve's bolted the ingest ponies in for the night.

You can have a MacBook as a satellite for your MBP or Mac Pro, or you can get a MacBook Pro or a Mac Pro. There's USB import, but I've not done that with FCP...

Christopher Ruffell
October 15th, 2008, 01:09 PM
The whole no FW400 thing on MacBooks is a load of you know what. Great summary here:

TechThoughts.org | Apple says: Firewire be gone! (http://techthoughts.org/2008/10/14/apple-says-firewire-be-gone/)


Quote by 'Old Guy With A Beard':
"Apple advised that buyers would have to use a video camera that uses USB to transfer video to the computer - and that excludes about 99% of all video cameras out there.

I was advised to check the Apple online store for such video cameras, but found only Canon firewire-based models for sale!"

Quote by Trey Vancy:
"The bottom line of the Firewire issue:
This raises the cost of an entry-level Firewire machine by a whopping ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. Am I missing something, or is this just insane?"